Superfluous Death

Mrs. Malory’s sleuthing talents are tested once again when one of her friends, a sweet elderly lady, is poisoned. Miss Graham’s death is quite convenient for a local doctor; her refusal to move thwarted his construction project. But Mrs. Malory knows that nothing is as simple as it seems, especially when it is revealed that Miss Graham left a considerable fortune. A Mrs Mallory Mystery Book 6. More

The sleepy seaside town of Taviscombe has more than its share of gossips and schemers. It also has Mrs. Sheila Malory, a widow whose gift for judging character and unmasking murderers is as impressive as her knowledge of nineteenth-century literature. Mrs. Malory’s sleuthing talents are tested once again when she comes upon the body of one of her friends, a sweet elderly lady. Miss Graham’s death by poison is quite convenient for a local doctor of dubious reputation; the dead woman’s refusal to move thwarted Dr. Cowley’s plans to build a nursing home. But Mrs. Malory knows that nothing is as simple as it seems, especially when it is revealed that Miss Graham left a considerable fortune. Another suspicious death during a fireworks display further complicates matters. These two very different murders—one furtive, the other violent—can’t possibly be related. Or can they? Superfluous Death is the sixth of Hazel Holt’s Mrs. Malory mysteries.

Hazel Holt has many devoted fans in the United States and Great Britain as a writer of “cosy” British mysteries; she has published nineteen Mrs. Malory novels to date. She is also known to admirers of Barbara Pym as the friend and biographer who edited Pym’s posthumous works.

Ms. Holt originated from Birmingham, England, where she attended King Edward VI High School for Girls. She graduated from Newham College, Cambridge, and went on to work at the International African Institute in London, where she met novelist Barbara Pym and became her official biographer with the critically acclaimed, A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym.

Holt wrote her first novel in her sixties and is a leading crime novelist. She is best known for her “Sheila Malory” series. Her son is the novelist Tom Holt.

Hazel Holt was a personal friend and literary adviser to Barbara Pym and is Pym’s official biographer. A former television critic and feature writer, she lives in Somerset, England.